Lauren Baskers
"All I ever wanted, was to help people." -Lauren History Lauren Baskers grew up in a small sleepy village, where she was raised by her grandfather after the death of her parents from bandits at a very young age. Raised to eventually replace her grandfather as the local healer, she spent her entire life learning non-magical healing arts and herbalist remedies so as to better serve the small community and combat all it's ailments and medical troubles. Eventually coming into her own as the head doctor and marrying her childhood sweetheart Burkhard with whom she would mother her daughter Emiline, Lauren's life was good, until tragedy struck. Awoken in the middle of the night on a full moon by sounds of panic coming from the barn on their farm, Lauren and Burkhard went outside to investigate, fearing a robber might be trying to steal their horse or livestock, and discovered a scene of carnage. Their horse dead & mangled, and an unusually large wolf loose in the barn. Although they were able to successfully drive off the beast, Lauren was badly burned by an out of control blaze when the struggle against the wolf resulted in her oil lamp exploding and spreading it's ignited liquids all across the barn and herself. Badly burned along the left side of her body, Lauren would be stricken with terrible pain for the rest of her life from the disfiguring burns she suffered that night. Unfortunately, these would prove to be among the least of her new problems. A month passed, and although still weak, Lauren's recovery was going well, until the full moon rose. Hidden by her terrible burns, none had ever realized the wolf had bitten her in the chaos of the barn fire, and out of her mind with the pain that night, Lauren had completely forgotten about it. As the full moon rose that night, Lauren transformed into a feral wolf, and tried to attack her husband and child, who were able to barricade themselves in another portion of the house until morning. Terrified by Lauren's new reality, Burkhard never the less tried to stand by her and support his wife, until a disturbing trend began to manifest itself; More and more frequently, he would find Lauren willingly transforming during the night and losing herself to the wolf, on nights that were in no way close to the full moon. Justifying herself by explaining that in that form, she felt free from the constant pain of her burns, and never fully admitting to herself that she felt free as the wolf from the burden of the guilt and fear she felt for herself and her actions on the full moon, the two's relationship quickly soured until things came to a head one day, when Lauren was home alone with their daughter. Suffering a particularly bad day of pain, Lauren chose to transform while home alone with Emeline, thinking herself safely contained in her bedroom where the child could not go. Unfortunately, Lauren underestimated the determination of a young child frightened by her mother's sudden disappearance, and determined to find her. Although ultimately able to regain control of herself before she caused any physical harm to her daughter, the utterly terrified child would run screaming from the house and into the woods. Upon his return to their home, Burkhard was horrified to discover the loss of his daughter, which Lauren chose not to fully reveal the reasons for to him. Although the two were able to eventually track down the young girl, Emeline refused to go anywhere near Lauren, and tearfully revealed the truth of her disappearance to her father. No longer able to trust his wife when the reason for their daughter's actions was revealed, Burkhard would take up a silver sword he had purchased and hidden away incase he ever had need of it, and drive Lauren away from their once happy home, threatening to tell the whole town what she had become and kill her himself if she ever returned, convinced now she had become a threat to their daughter by her neglect and refusal to take her curse seriously. Suffering and alone, Lauren began moving from town to town, using her knowledge of the medical arts to make a living for herself, even as she continued to slip further and further into dependency upon her cursed form during the night to sleep and escape from her painful life and memories. Now, 3 years later, she finds herself in the city of Skyholm, where she hopes to set up a medical clinic where she can accumulate money to fund her research into Lycanthropy, in all it's forms, and maybe, if she really can stand to live without the escape it provides her, finally cure her affliction. Appearance Aleksi-briclot-marvelstudios-ragnarok-fenris-02f-small (1).jpg|The Wolf Plague-doctor-robe-1.png|Basker's Usual Appearance Lauren: A human woman in her late twenties/very early thirties in appearance, Lauren is always seen wearing medical robes with a large hooded cloak to obscure her badly burned face. Cloth wrappings or long sleeves cover her arms to hide the burns on her left arm, and a plague doctor's mask can occasionally be seen to be worn by her when she is working, something she frequently avoids wearing in public to prevent any crowds from panicking at the sight of a passing plague doctor in full outfit. The Wolf: Accidentally altered by extensive efforts by Lauren to cure herself via exposure to a number of alchemical, xenoalchemical, unnatural, and herbal methods down through the years, the wolf is an enormous creature the size of a Clydesdale horse, and exhibits a number of atypical traits that clearly mark it as something far removed from any normal woodland animal. Unnaturally large, with glowing golden eyes, boney protrusions along it's shoulders and spine, and bearing a wickedly unnaturally sharp set of drool dripping fangs, the wolf is an aggressive predatory creature driven only by hunger and a desire to hunt. It is always accompanied by several spectral wolves of unknown to Lauren origins, which accompany it on it's nightly hunts when it is able to roam free. Although Lauren is (usually) fully capable of controlling herself in this form most of the time, and regularly does when she needs to, she is just as likely to sneak off to her current lodgings to inhabit the wolf's form and allow it to roam free of her control within a cage secreted away from the public, using the dangerous beast's body as a brief reprieve within which she can recover and dream of better days. Personality Naturally kind-hearted, but controlled by her curse. Lauren was raised from a young age to value life, and devote herself to helping others without expectation of repayment or reward. Despite the dark turns her life has taken in the past few years, she is still a somberly helpful, altruistic person, who has quickly grown withdrawn and disinclined to share much about herself beyond her work in the face of personal fears and shame of her life. She considers exploitation or predation upon others, especially those less fortunate, to be morally reprehensible, and evil thing. Ultimately, she simply genuinely enjoys helping people, and is at her most happy when her xenoalchemical arts are able to help others or improve their lives. Something she is beginning to feel may be beyond her ability to do for herself. Buisness Operating out of the low ward, Lauren runs a non-magical healing clinic. There, she offers her medical & herbalist skills as a healer, and her Xenoalchemic abilities to those looking to gain that little extra advantage over the many threats and perils the world has to offer. Business Details Groups: Laborers: 500 1,000g/day Buildings: Lauren's Modified Hospital: 68g/day 1 Bath, 1 Common Room, 2 Infirmaries, 1 Lavatory, 1 Office, 1 Statue, 1 Storage, 1 Storefront, 1 Workstation, 1 Alchemy lab, 2 Book RepositoriesCategory:Characters